Exhibition Centre plans community ‘kitchen garden’

A new ‘kitchen garden’ could be created on land around Exhibition Centre Liverpool (ECL) to provide the community with an area for education and gardening skills.

The garden would be managed by the multi-faith organisation Faiths4Change, which was launched in 2004 to facilitate volunteer-led environmental projects, along with members of the ACC Liverpool team and four local organisations.

Plans submitted to Liverpool City Council by ACC Liverpool, which operates ECL as well as the city’s Echo Arena and BT Convention Centre, propose the development of the garden on land to the south of ECL with a single-storey pavilion building, boundary treatments and landscaping works.

A planning document put forward by ACC Liverpool says: “As part of the commitment to local green issues and corporate social responsibility, ACCL and their catering partner Centreplate, wish to install a kitchen garden.

“The kitchen garden is entended to provide the local community with a unique area to educate and provide valuable skills while bringing different community groups together using a common theme.”

A variety of fruit vegetables, herbs and flowers would be grown in the garden, which would also produce honey.

Features of the 1,000 square metre plot would include 25 raised planting beds, two beehives, a poly-tunnel, a potting shed, a kitchen classroom, an undercover seating area, a compost toilet and hospitality space.

According to the plans, the team operating the kitchen garden would also work with local schools and colleges, particularly those running catering programmes, to “introduce students into the benefits of working with local fresh produce”.

Centreplate and ECL employees would also use the garden to learn about produce if the project is given the go ahead.